Screened at the Mill Valley Film Festival
MILL VALLEY, Calif. -- The 1960s hasn't lost its hold on veteran television director Bobby Roth who, having plundered his adulthood for low-budget, autobiographical films such as "Jack the Dog" and "Manhood", reaches deeper into his past for "Berkeley", an affectionate look at his undergraduate years at UC Berkeley, when the tumultuous '60s ignited the campus.
Roth, who also wrote the script, attempts and only partially succeeds in capturing the exhilaration of feeling part of something larger than oneself -- an experience shared, at that time, by many young people in the midst of a heady social and political awakening. The elegant looking, nostalgic film is undermined by inadequate character development, amateurish acting and sentimental self-regard. "Berkeley" doesn't have a distributor though it might find life on premium television.
The story centers on 18-year-old Ben Sweet (Nick Roth), a middle-class, Jewish kid from a conservative family, "away from home for the first time, horny and trying to avoid the draft," as it follows him through his less than earth-shattering adventures at college. It's only a matter of time before he grows his hair long and plays Bad Bob Dylan on the street. Otherwise, he's jamming with his buddies, smoking dope, bedding attractive co-eds and arguing with his immigrant father, Sy, played by Henry Winkler, who brings warmth and substance to an underwritten role. Bonnie Bedelia, in wire-rimmed glasses, also does a nice turn as Ben's sardonic professor, a woman who enjoys a nip or two while conducting student conferences.
A crucial misstep was the casting of Nick Roth, the director's son, as Ben. Well-lit and lovingly photographed, Roth is in almost every scene and is the film's primary focus. Unfortunately, Roth fils is not, as yet, a compelling camera subject and cannot carry a movie. His delivery of lines and banal voice-over narration is lackluster and detached. Two-dimensional characters including Ben float through the story and fail to register, with the exception of Sy, whose struggle to understand and accept his son is moving and rings true.
Roth seems infatuated with his youth, a potential pitfall, but he does get the '60s cultural zeitgeist: the cultivated sloppiness, the posturing and intellectual pretentiousness. After all, those were the days when pontificating about the evils of capitalism was considered foreplay. Although, through Ben, he professes a strong connection with this singular period in his life, the passion and energy don't communicate on screen. Not much happens, little is revealed. There's a paradox in making a static movie about a generation that wanted to change the world.
Roth saturates the soundtrack with raucous music of the era, which supplies ambiance, but doesn't compensate for the emotional vacuity at the film's core. It's sex, drugs and rock and roll without soul. Guess you had to be there.
BERKELEY
IMAC Arts. JungNRestless Films Presents a Jeffrey White Production
Credits:
Writer/director: Bobby Roth
Producers: Bobby Roth, Jeffrey White
Executive producers: Lon Bender, Cosmas Paul Bolger Jr.
Director of photography: Steve Burns
Production designer: Henry G. Sanders
Music: Christopher Franke, Tom Morello
Costumes: Naila Aladdin Sanders
Editors: Carsten Becker, Emily Wallin
Cast:
Ben: Nick Roth
Sadie: Laura Jordan
Sy: Henry Winkler
Alice: Sarah Carter
Blue: Tom Morello
Henry: Jake Newton
Mishkin: Sebastian Tillinger
Buddy: Wade Allain-Marcus
Hawkins: Bonnie Bedelia
Susie: Sarah Bibb
Pearl: Ruby Roth
Thomas the Valet: Thomas Gibson
Ralph: Reed Diamond
No MPAA rating
unning time -- 88 minutes...
MILL VALLEY, Calif. -- The 1960s hasn't lost its hold on veteran television director Bobby Roth who, having plundered his adulthood for low-budget, autobiographical films such as "Jack the Dog" and "Manhood", reaches deeper into his past for "Berkeley", an affectionate look at his undergraduate years at UC Berkeley, when the tumultuous '60s ignited the campus.
Roth, who also wrote the script, attempts and only partially succeeds in capturing the exhilaration of feeling part of something larger than oneself -- an experience shared, at that time, by many young people in the midst of a heady social and political awakening. The elegant looking, nostalgic film is undermined by inadequate character development, amateurish acting and sentimental self-regard. "Berkeley" doesn't have a distributor though it might find life on premium television.
The story centers on 18-year-old Ben Sweet (Nick Roth), a middle-class, Jewish kid from a conservative family, "away from home for the first time, horny and trying to avoid the draft," as it follows him through his less than earth-shattering adventures at college. It's only a matter of time before he grows his hair long and plays Bad Bob Dylan on the street. Otherwise, he's jamming with his buddies, smoking dope, bedding attractive co-eds and arguing with his immigrant father, Sy, played by Henry Winkler, who brings warmth and substance to an underwritten role. Bonnie Bedelia, in wire-rimmed glasses, also does a nice turn as Ben's sardonic professor, a woman who enjoys a nip or two while conducting student conferences.
A crucial misstep was the casting of Nick Roth, the director's son, as Ben. Well-lit and lovingly photographed, Roth is in almost every scene and is the film's primary focus. Unfortunately, Roth fils is not, as yet, a compelling camera subject and cannot carry a movie. His delivery of lines and banal voice-over narration is lackluster and detached. Two-dimensional characters including Ben float through the story and fail to register, with the exception of Sy, whose struggle to understand and accept his son is moving and rings true.
Roth seems infatuated with his youth, a potential pitfall, but he does get the '60s cultural zeitgeist: the cultivated sloppiness, the posturing and intellectual pretentiousness. After all, those were the days when pontificating about the evils of capitalism was considered foreplay. Although, through Ben, he professes a strong connection with this singular period in his life, the passion and energy don't communicate on screen. Not much happens, little is revealed. There's a paradox in making a static movie about a generation that wanted to change the world.
Roth saturates the soundtrack with raucous music of the era, which supplies ambiance, but doesn't compensate for the emotional vacuity at the film's core. It's sex, drugs and rock and roll without soul. Guess you had to be there.
BERKELEY
IMAC Arts. JungNRestless Films Presents a Jeffrey White Production
Credits:
Writer/director: Bobby Roth
Producers: Bobby Roth, Jeffrey White
Executive producers: Lon Bender, Cosmas Paul Bolger Jr.
Director of photography: Steve Burns
Production designer: Henry G. Sanders
Music: Christopher Franke, Tom Morello
Costumes: Naila Aladdin Sanders
Editors: Carsten Becker, Emily Wallin
Cast:
Ben: Nick Roth
Sadie: Laura Jordan
Sy: Henry Winkler
Alice: Sarah Carter
Blue: Tom Morello
Henry: Jake Newton
Mishkin: Sebastian Tillinger
Buddy: Wade Allain-Marcus
Hawkins: Bonnie Bedelia
Susie: Sarah Bibb
Pearl: Ruby Roth
Thomas the Valet: Thomas Gibson
Ralph: Reed Diamond
No MPAA rating
unning time -- 88 minutes...
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